#its even a really basic color pallette...

[shitpostdevil]

Like yeah, let me spend hours making art and creating characters based on how I feel when I listen to certain songs on an album just to get told I'm wrong and the characters aren't mine because the album was my inspiration and the character names are the songs I based the feelings on 🙄😐

[humblemediagenius]

This is all side order spoilers so i will have it under the read more but I'm thinking about this au so bad so I'll talk about it

So like in my very elaborate Splatoon AU story with my OCs who were not originally for splatoon (my original Splatoon OCs aren't really part of this story haha) theres like a plot that takes place after Octo Expansion where the monitor basically is made out of the remnants of commander tartar and it reworks kamabo co for its own purpose so everyone has to stop it from sanitizing everyone. In this plot john + mic get sanitized (and a bunch of other guys do too) so pepper sai rory and jordan have to stop the monitor and save mic and john. So you have that context now let me explain side order au

So like. agent 8 in my Splatoon universe is Ellie (that's the canon story to me) but in this au it would be sai because he's already an octoling and he is always facing the horrors at all times. His main is the tristringer but he could absolutely use (or at least attempt) every pallette, he's very adaptable

Mic and John would be pearl and marina respectively but their dynamic is VERY different. Instead of gay music artists in love they're like just forced to work together, they arent like enemies but they didn't know each other prior to being sanitized and they're still trying to move past the fact that all that happened LMAO

John totally would make the memverse to try and help people who were sanitized especially since he had a really big part in it (unwillingly, but he still feels very guilty)

The monitor would be order / smollusk . obviously. it wants order or something idk I saw artificial intelligence and went YOU. MONITOR CORE plus it would totally throw a fit due to losing its a bitch baby. And it would be SO. COOL. To see it with this black and white / creamish color scheme

Also I cannot get the idea of mic drone out of my mind!!! He would fly around but be so damn annoying to sai /j

Cameron would be acht.... canon wise she would not be a musician, but getting brainwashed to be a musician sounds like something that would exactly happen to her. Maybe some of that sticks with her even after getting her memories back. She would find mic incredibly annoying. Sai not so much. she wouldn't have a pre-established bond with john bc they wouldn't know each other (I'd say well maybe they were in the octarian army together, but she's considerably younger than him so??? And also I wanted John to be from splatsville and not octo valley so 🤷‍♀️) BUT I think that they would respect each other

Sorry just. Imagining the marina boss fight with john GRRRRGRGGRGRRRGRGRGRGRGRG

[noro-noro-noro]

dreamed again

first bit was like I was playing w a stranger on a modded Minecraft server. no idea how any of it worked but there were weird caches that had skeleton eggs (?) like not skeleton spawn eggs but red eggs that had cursed purple skeletons in there on them. the person I was with also had several buttons labelled "oh fuck" in the overworld that wluld teleport you back to base. they were very blunt & businesslike. to the point. idk why I was there but I think I was like forced to live in there or whatever so that was also the world. most of the time I was inside trying to tend creatures.

actually this came before - I was bringing home a bag of small crabs & horseshoe crabs & also giant triops & other made up dream crustaceans. & an alien-like sea urchin made f 6 or 8 jointed segments that would extend its segments through anything slowly but surely to gain more nutrients. I got a HUGE tank and put it in my mom's living room & tried to amke them.comfy - I wasn't planning on keeping wild animals, but I needed to have them, so they light as well be in a better environment than a bucket of water. there were also several mid size dead and decaying animals I threw in for them to eat.there was also several isopods . one in particular was like a rubber duck one exceot with a white body instead and he was super interested and active. my sister wasn't scared of him

eventually the first tank was too full of water(we had no lids) and I realized the creatures might jump out so I asked my sister to help me drain water & she broke the whole thing. I tried to save everything but some of the tiny fish died while I was gettjng two new tanks setup. I threw them in for the crustaceans to eat, and eventually the second tank was devoured and eaten through by the special sea urchin that ate glass. and this happened BEFORE the Minecraft dream bc it then shifted into me taking care of mieceaft fish in our base.

scene shift & that person became wrio genshin. his story quest was now released....! and it was about helping those two researchers that hate each other but everyone thinks they're in a relationship bc they disappear to the infirmary at the same time all the time. this was a 3rd person dream where I was basically just watching the traveller as she assisted wriothy with helping the researchers as thry bickered the whole time. there was a scene where she went too far out of her way for them and got hurt and wrio came to visit her as soon as possible in the infirmiary and like grabbed her chin and leaned over very closely tp have the conversation. it seemed like she was about to be kissed & was like um !!!? 😳😳😳😳 and then the researchers peeked in and immediately started gossippibg like "and everybody says WE are in a relationship even though we hate each other and these people are RIGHT THERE doing this kind of stuff with the duke ‼️" & wrio kinda smilled & sighed & walked away to reprimand them like"do you really think spreading rumors about the Duke of the fortress of meropide, your employer, is a good idea?" & they eere like "no your grace sorry your grace see you later" & scurried off, & thr story quest ended with a cgg of rhe traveller doing that anime girl thing where thry look off to the side beet red and touch their lips where they were almost kissed, & wrio in the bg. I was like wow.they really went shippy with this one this never happens. even with ayaka and Xiao.

hm after that I had a dream I was with my sister at ?a beach resort or smth. there was a GIANT wall of makeup products including a bunch of really weird colors of eyeliner. I tested out a bright silver from a silver/orange/gold palette & actually genuinely really liked it,so I wanted to buy it without the rest of the pallette. apparently the owner of the brand was in the same town, so I told my sister I'd be back and walked over. the makeup store was also part hair salon - a girl was getting her hair died to have like a dark blue tint with kther rgb streaks in it & each streak that overlapped had like a sparkle illuminating that part, but the sparkle was dyed in..anywsy the whole place was run by a large and very friendly trans lady. I asked her directly aboit the eyeshadow I saw and also asked for a haircut since my split ends were acting up.in the dream I was also on my period & the lady said sympathetically "oh if you're on your perjod your splot ends get worse but we ca fix that!" & I was like okay.... and sat on the hairsresser chair, which was more of like a lounge chair than a normal one.

I don't remember if she actually did anything about the hair bc a lot of people I knew suddenly came inside. kt wasnow dark and raining outside. one of my studio classmates revealed that she'd lived in this shop before bc the owner kindly let her use the room upstairs for free after her landlord screwed her over. also the assistant from work showed up but younger? and I forgot her name and said it was ALMOND. so embarrassing. anyway I was just sitting in the chair for a while and texting y sister updates. when I asked again about the silver eyeliner, she revealed that they were leftovers shipped in from somewhere else & arrived here unlabeled, but she'd try to find the one I wanted for me.

eventually I went to walk home but the weather was so bad.... I was treated to another 3rdperson scene of lumine genshin impact waking up in a cozy bed in a strange room with leafy branches putsife the window and a warm sun shining through. wrio's Castle...? (even though he's only I charge of the underwater giant prison) then I woke up . I need to wash my hair but kts getting stixky again and I don't want to.

[soughtcherries]

your art is SO PRETTY! how do you choose your colors so they all work together in a piece? I'm trying to learn how to use pallettes in art, but I'm not very good at it haha. any tips?

hello!!!!!! Tysm for all the compliments!! 🥹💖

Okay mm basically keep in mind that finding a palette for a certain kind of character is something that is in constant evolution; tonight I was looking at one of my old arts and I noticed I used to draw Kaoru's skin a bit more greyish than what I do now! Your eyes train to perceive the colors and so they improve for the better to find the combo it better suits your drawing!

Two things I also try to keep in mind are

1) colors are relative to the illustrations in place; your eye knows what a certain color is like even if for example you see it under the sun or under a sunset yellowy light. So the same palette might not work if you find youself in a different light situation!

2) colors are ALSO related to the art style where they are used! I once had to illustrate a character for an academy project and its palette came out in an atrocious way when the same character was illustrated by my friends! My style is more rough, so pastel like colors go really well with it, but when my friend (who has a VERY heavy lineart) used them they seemed dim and dull. So not all colors work for everyone!

One other advice I can give you is, put every different section (hair, skin, cloth1, cloth2) in a different layer, put some placeholder colors (you can also use mine if you want!) and then open the hue, saturation and brightness color panel! - It's ctrl+U in photoshop, or else in procreate is v easy to find, all softwares have it!

There you can tweak a bit the colors until they reach a balance you like!

To help yourself in the beginning you can also put a colored layer on top with a different color mode (multiply, etc.) to give all the colors a common characteristic (for example, pink colored layer in multiply with low opacity, everything will look pinker BUT the colors will look more armonic); I suggest tho to be very careful with this one! Some color/color modes of said layer sometimes can compromise a delicate balance ur original colors managed to create!

I hope these advices have been helpful! Lmk if they are, and thank u again for ur question!

[wszczebrzyszynie]

I am obsessed with your long hair boy characters and especially the blond green one Mikita, the colors make my brain do so many things and i just feel so melancholy but happy? At the same time? He always looks miserable but cosey and slimey but in a warm comfy way if that makes any sense... maybe its the flowing hair and the green but like... he looks like he himself is an environment. If you were with him you'd be painted in his colors and tones and it would feel so cozy yet depressed. Painted in him, i suppose is how i would put it

Fjfhhxbdh thats so cool actually!!! But its also true in a way? I try to make the background and the pallette fit the character to make sure the contrast is okay, but its often not possible 100%? Characters like Przemek (the guy with scars) and Ryba and everyone else really, they have a lot of browns and other colors with different values and brightness, which while it makes them look more like real people, its also not as easy to successfuly put them in a contrasting background; and thats fine, smaller contrast doesnt mean it looks bad or anything. Mikita/Nika on the other hand is all white with optional greens and red, making him feel more like a ghost (something other characters think he is at first), and to make sure he looks like one, i amplify the whites by giving him darker backgrounds, even if there is another character with him (like Przemek) who doesnt look so well on darker ones... basically hes changing the color palette of the whole drawing whenever hes included :) examples under the read more thing i dont want to spam more

Przemek with Ryba, with Nika (i dont really like the first drawing anymore, it is a bit old) and alone :) Przemek is a character that really does not look good on dark backgrounds, i always have to make sure his hair doesnt blend in, but Nikas presence and ghost symbolism is more important to me than that. Theres also this drawing of Nika with his mom, again with similar rules, but this time the characters dark palette works in the drawings favour...

its a bit silly and i probably talk abt it too much here (sorry), but Nika is my favourite character to draw for a reason and ill take every opportunity to overexplain every little aspect of him..... thank u lots for the kind words i hope this long ass answer didnt bore u too much

[romeave]

have you done reece or sasha? i don't think reece had many but sasha's wardrobe could be fun!

sorry for the wait anon!!

MYSTREET FIT REVIEW - REESE

MYSTREET SEASON ONE - DELIVERY

Apparently, Pizza Hut buys their uniforms from the same retailer Dante frequents. Falls into the same traps as Dante’s first fit, but slightly less bad? The candy apple red looks nice with the pink skin

7/10

MYSTREET SEASON ONE - CASUAL

Any notes I have about the color pallette or the revolutionary pairing of a white flannel with a color shirt are negated by the human skin tone in the jeans only. How does that happen? Did they rip the pants off the skindex and forget to change it? Did they follow a tutorial and forget to adjust for the pink candy man? Is that just…his legs??? Are they part of the pants???

5/10

TOTAL SCORE - 6/10

MYSTREET FIT REVIEW - SASHA

PHOENIX DROP HIGH - UNIFORM

Honestly, Sasha’s uniform has always felt like a missed opportunity. The shadow knights are built up as a rebellious gang feared by more than one person, and the most unique element of Sasha’s uniform is…white ankle socks. Seeing as Sasha is so light on her own, just putting her in the basic PDH girls uniform makes her look washed out.

4/10

PHOENIX DROP HIGH - CASUAL

The muted purple sweater with the black ripped jeans is cute. Helps her hair and eyes stand out without competing. Definately doesn’t hit the goth angle Jesson claims Sasha has, but could pass for a nice grunge fit.

7/10

PHOENIX DROP HIGH - MAID

I bet you forgot PDH had a whole episode where high schoolers did maid outfits for a bakesale. Love that the white and black stands out from her silver hair, and the stockings/sleeves are a light lavender. Looses points for the concept

4/10

MYSTREET SEASON THREE - CASUAL

I have no clue why Jesson waited to dress Sasha like an alt teenager until Mystreet? The sweater is straight out of Aph’s closet, but the navy pleated skirt with the wine netted ties and those funky shoes are on brand for alt kid between the ages of 14-19. Dunno why the skirt and the tights have the same value, hard to see.

6/10

UPSIDE-DOWN STORIES - CASUAL

I assume Sasha’s supposed to be the Garroth parallel? He wears the varsity jacket, she wears the PDH cheerleader uniform? The uniform is kind of ugly and iirc isn’t even the uniform used in the normal timeline. The red shoes seem really out of place too. I like her hair bumb though its cute

3/10

MYSTREET SIDE STORIES - CASUAL

Jesson still has no idea what goth people look like, but this fit is nice!! The cropped demin jacket is cute, and the purple shirt with black pants fit her aesthetic. I have no idea why they changed her eyecolor to the same color as her shoes and slapped her old one on her shirt though. This Sasha has the nicest bang design of the bunch, though.

6/10

TOTAL SCORE - 6/10

[anestheticrage]

Be me: Japanese honor student🎓, 15, with half a brain and even less of a plan. Hunting bitches by day and witches by night. Livin that dank only child✌️ life while mom n dad yeet all over the globe, leavin me plenty of time to forget not to make 2 lunches for myself #quirky 😜

no time for socialization or basic electronics skills ???📱??? when your best friends are an alien demon rabbit🐰👽 and the inexplicable Hole ™ in your brain. lmao, btw did i mention im ✨M✨A✨G✨I✨C✨A✨L✨

dreamin bout my 2D waifus again when familiar pink haired cancer patient dances through my brain passin out fliers: Kamihama Meguca Dating Service: Sponsored by Cult of the Magius. 250 stones per session 🤔

seems legit, Mr. Moneybags. wasn't spending my unwieldy sack of gemstones on anything else anyway. lets pull 💎💎💎

first up we have Redhead Radagast and her plethora of plants. 🌿☺️🦎

anndd, nearly dies immediately. 

well not off to a great start but i guess shes pretty cute at lea- oh FUCK its her girlfriend, Tsundere Poseidon😒🔱💦, and their exasperated, straight and single Sword Mom 😔🗡️🔥. fml gonna have to save up for the next pull. might as well play a few rounds with what i got tho. 

get in some good girl talk about things like school, color coded hair styles, body count, permanent soul damage, and our personal demon pacts. ya know, the usual 😚 . realize my dark backstory seems to be missing, so the girls take me to Ketchup Queen Sappho 🍅🥧 (wtf?) to molest my glowy egg stone. whatevs, more action than ive had since Kuroe 🖤 got added to the story anyway

the gang agrees it's time to hunt down the cutest rabbit pimp 🕶️🐇💵 in the city. >> say 🎵mukyuuu🎵 one more time and ill hug you so hard my backstory will pop right out, you adorable fluffy bastard. plz be my new best friend 💕

Form brand new friendship pact with Kyubae, and remember that my lil Sis 🐥 was always the best wingman for pickin up magic chicks, and kept her side of the room so spotless i forgot she existed. whoops 乁༼☯‿☯✿༽ㄏ Maybe if I find her i can stop paying these exorbitant pull fees.📵💎

speaking of which: hot damn this week's featured bachelorette is a 19 year old model and magical detective🔎 with massive levels of PTSD and self loathing 🥵💙💦 more likely to stab you or dramatically jump off a rooftoop than utter a single positive comment. wow, maybe i really COULD find true love…

... if i had MORE THAN A 1% FUCKING DRAW CHANCE. 😡 smh

hard to make much progress finding sis or winning the broken heart of a hard boiled detective amidst the never ending lover's quarrel of the Trident Vine Lesbians. 💔 Sword Mom tells them if they don't behave a monster will take them away. LOL classic mom 🤣

>>>HOLY FUCK IT DID

declare all-out war on urban legends, starting with staircases ⚔️ to reunite the dysfunctional trio, and hope that I net a way better lineup with the next 10x pull. at least sad sleuth lady came to help out. they say combat is the best way to bond wi-   and there she goes off the rooftop again 🙄 fml

alright that got way off track, we need a fresh start, away from all the loli drama. how bout a little B&E🔓🔨🤷🏻‍♀️ at the local house of worship to clear my head. ahh nothing like the unanswered prayers of the masses to get you in the mood for another wasted pull, and the 🔥 MIGHTIEST 🔥 headache you could ask for with a side of Double Cooked Pork 🐖🍜 (meh 5/10🧾)

venture forth into the spiritual unknown with your new human flamethrower🔥🌻🧡 and ask your favorite private eye to please, for the love of Eve, trade Meguca accounts with me~~~ Head through the eastern spirit portal to meet up with hologram propaganda sis and detective crush's evil ex, who joined a dating-app cult (#fuck) and also turned into the moon?🌕?(that's rough buddy)

get ambushed by Acid Horse on Wheels 🌈🐴 and vomit up my soul so hard that its time for a crossover episode. T U R F F F   W A R R R *que operatic harmonies* 💛 Blondie with the hair drills and enough attitude and guns to fill up a noble phantasm tries to ban my account permanently, but PI heartthrob denies her admin privileges. aww babe i didn't know you cared. 😭♥️

get kidnapped by my new true love and go back to her place 😏  defs enough empty rooms to house five emotionally traumatized girls and at least two ghosts hehehe👻 XD 💚🃏💜🎸 decide to form the anti-gossip brigade and recruit my blazing sunflower after getting ambushed by the witch living in my fruit loops🥣

❌outvoted 2:1 that cults are bad. mf. fiinneee one last pull to round out the team and then I'll delete the app. cmonnn Karin 🎃~

OH HELL YEAH TWO FOR ONE.

Always wanted a daughter 💜🔨🐄 with a penchant for pissing off the local Martial Arts & Books Club and drinking suspicious liquids offered by total strangers. Well if it's good enough for her AND the sexy mayadere with enough game to seduce a mermaid, might as well get in on that myself. 

#curseddrank 🤢 0/24 would not recommend to a friend, 'cept maybe Ria

win alot of cash 🤑, blow up a fountain, meet the pied piper²🎶🖕, moon cult, monochrome feathers, something about liberation✊🏻; adopt temper tantrum cow girl. aces 💜🥩

Next up!!! skydiving with DJ Hammer! Jump to apparently-not-certain death after suicidal A.I. 💚💾🗼 tells you to rescue her hostage before they run out of Radiohead albums and have to move on to Thom Yorke's solo discography. save the invisible shield kitten 💚👑😿 from happiness and get chased through the internet by the sexiest homicidal Paint Pallette 💚🎨😈 since Caravaggio. (apparently green is the color of the digital apocalypse. i’m deleting Kako from my friend's list)

that’s it, fuck this app. 250 stones 💎 per-life-threatening-experience is more than i’m willing to deal with 😓 don’t wanna mess with the perfect nuclear family anyway. we've already got: 

✔️the two emotionally traumatized moms with memory and commitment issues

✔️the adhd daughter with anger management problems and a giant hammer

✔️the psychologically abused scizophrenic cat

✔️and the eccentric aunt with crippling anxiety

#squadgoals

now that were done hoarding bitches, its time to hunt the witches. and the bitches makin the witches. btw did i mention the witches ARE the bitches! AND WERE ALL GOING TO DIE!? 📽️⁉️💀 wait fuck lets back up a second

This is Nemo📕 and Token🧪 and they have all the answers but prefer if you only ask vague questions in exchange for vague responses so they can fill in the rest by discussing their superior intellect 🧠 at length. not to mention they built that dating app, so of course everyone in my harem decides to be a FUCKING. TRAITOR.🤬

cept waifu prime ofc 🥰💙. [PTSD > brainwashing] 'yOu CaN bE tHe LeAdEr NoW'. i have been from the very beginning you traumatized Hinedere nightmare. maybe if you weren't so caught up collecting surrogate daughters you would've noticed IM👏THE����ONLY👏 ONE👏PROGRESSING👏THE FUCKING👏PLOT✨

rescue the rest of dysfunctional found-family™ from selves before my adorable firebender burns down Disnihama🎡🔥😱 during her weekly anxiety attack. (love the makeover T B H) 

CHAPTER 8: Magical Girl Massacre🩸🗡️

   - everyone has like, the shittiest day ever

   - the new Pope really needs to be extradited from the church

   - make friends with a really pretty tree 🌺🌲✨

i swear, if i don't finish this god damn story in time to get that free pull im gonna beat the shit out of every mirror i find in that giant mansion that i haven't even had any time to even mention yet. 🖕🏚️ let alone EVERYTHING happening with the prequel [fuck you, I'm the star] girls 💗💜💙💛❤️️ and their multidimensional melodrama. We don't need that many repetitive af episodes to emphasize that Homo-ra is a shitty person. we've all seen Rebellion. 🙄

NO, I DONT CARE IF YOU WANT SAPPHO'S BACKSTORY, I ONLY HAVE 79 STONES LEFT AND IF YACHAN FINDS OUT I HAVEN'T DELETED THE APP YET IM GONNA HAVE TO GO SLEEP IN WITH SANA 😭💎💸😠

uhhhggggg where were we… Topple a cult and burn down Hotel Denoument only to realize that Sis was fused with the dating app servers this entire madokafuckin time (told ya she was the best wingman 😊). 

Dilemma: Sis =🥚, Triumvirate of Trouble want 🐣. What do? vote now:

Help Hatch - IIIIIII

Not Do That - IIIII

What The Actual Fuck Is Going On - IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Lets just fight everyone until something good happens.

🔥🔫🔥🗡️🔥😱🔥🌆🔥😱🔥🛡️🔥💣🔥

Kill (???) the artist-in-chief of the italian reindeer murder police after teaching her the true meaning of Christmas 🎄 hatch 🐣lil Sis and realize she WAS your wingman all along🐰 MUKYUUUU! we're just gonna ignore how much trouble it would have saved if you'd just mentioned that. "yOu DiDnT aSk..." 

FUCK YOU SPACE BITCH. ONCE AN INCUBATOR ALWAYS AN INCUBATOR 🖕🐇🔪

anywho, somewhere along the lines we of course summoned the Antichrist ⚙️ because why not raise the stakes to max and still not kill off a single character. Madofuckinkami, can we PLEASE wrap this up. 😩💤

feathers (not the culty kind, tfm) rain from the sky, and the power of friendship and not having the Urobutcher 🔪🩸as a lead writer saves our peacefully sectioned off alternate reality 😇

TL:DR fuck cults, real life waifus DO exist, don't sell your soul to space rabbits, or your stones to megacorporations. Enjoy arc 2 on the JP server with your shitty translation patch you filthy fuckin weebs 

Yours Truly, 

- Thirsty Weeb Eroha 💗💎😘 

[horrorofthebeast]

real how to make fursona advice? :pleading:

OK. So basically i would start out with an animal u would like to be! Not that hard. If it is hard for u to choose try imagining ur fav animals as anthromorphic and see which one u like best and fits u.

If u cant find anything that u feel connected to try going for mythical creatures or even an animal u make up yourself, or even mashing up species.

Next just try sketching out the animals as furry form u have on ur "i really like this idea" list. Keep playing with the designs. Then pick out some ones you liked via sketch and play with smaller details like teeth, eyes, horn style, claws, scars, stitches, etc. (I think this part is the most time consuming, not in a bad way) it doesnt need to happen in one day sometimes it takes a while to find something you can fall in love with

Next comes color schemes and design. I used 2 be really good at this when i was younger but now i suck. U can choose to have natural colors of the animal u chose (not my favorite option) or make up ur own scheme. I would play with making color schemes, going on palette generators and stuff. Seeing what u like. I would pick several to save for the next part.

Next part is markings (aka what i called design in the last paragraph) i hate this part its so hard for me.. i would look at other animal markings/other fursonas to find inspiration. Maybe even patterens. And start applying them to ur fursona using your color pallettes u liked. I would play around and just make a lot of different ideas. If u feel like u wanna change one or 2 colors on the scheme, DO IT. It doesnt hurt. U wont hurt the color palette's feelings

This is what i have described i hope it helps u! <3

[zombiescantfly]

Words About Games - Unreal Tournament 3 (Epic Games, 2007)

Unreal Tournament 3 is nothing short of an utter embarrassment, incompetent at nearly every level, and a gross misunderstanding of a playerbase that was, at the time, nearly a decade old.  I wish I could just leave it at that, but this is the first game I ever felt wronged by.  

This was a franchise killer.  UT3 flopped so hard that it took fans desperate for any sign of a new game ten years to make Epic even consider adding a new entry to the series, and even then it is, as of time of writing, on indefinite hiatus so the handful of developers assigned to it can make more Fortnite dances.  But that comes later.  Unreal Tournament 3 comes first.

The Unreal series was hardly a stranger to hard knocks.  Return to Na Pali was a dull-at-best expansion pack while the much-maligned Unreal 2 missed the point entirely and has since slipped into laughable obscurity, and even the original Unreal Championship on Xbox had to be redeemed with a well-received followup.  I played neither of those, by the way, it's just my understanding that the first one was bad and the second was good.

So what made UT3 the last chance?  What about it was bad enough to kill the franchise that had gone toe-to-toe with Quake and lived to tell the tale?  The real question is what the hell Epic was thinking.

Unreal Tournament 3 lacks a great many things.  At launch, it boasted a meager six gamemodes, and even then only by virtue of splitting 1v1 deathmatch maps off of Deathmatch and into a new category called Duel.  So, our gametypes are: Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Duel, Capture the Flag, Vehicle CTF, and Warfare.  That's it.  No Bombing Run, no Mutant, no Invasion, no Domination (double or otherwise), and yet again, for some ungodly reason, no Assault.

I feel like I've done this before.  What else did UT3 leave out?  Facing Worlds!  Yep, it's out again, and this time without a replacement.  That's right, no Face 4 to make up for it.  A new Curse map, a staple of the series since the original Unreal multiplayer, is also missing.  Most of the character factions introduced in UT2003 and 2004 are gone, like the Nightmares, the Robots, the Juggernauts, the Mercenaries, the Gen Mo’kai, the Egyptians, and the Skaarj.  You know, the Skaarj, literally the most important faction to the series at large.  They're gone.  Xan Kriegor, the Big Bad of every Tournament since 1999, the final champ who uses an AI setting above Godlike, who has his own spaceship where the ultimate match is duked out 1v1 in a truly brutal and awesome deathmatch?  Gone.

But that's not the worst of it.  Sure, they stripped out almost everything they'd spent so much time building up throughout character and map descriptions for three games, but even that wasn't enough.  There has to be something else they could take away to really strip the game of its identity.  The Flak Cannon?  No, too easy.  The Shock Rifle?  Almost.  Malcolm, the veteran of all the in-universe Tournaments and arguably the (human) mascot of the series?  I'll do you one better.

They took away the Tournament.

They took away the Tournament.

They took away.

The Tournament.

Unreal Tournament 3 has no Tournament.  

What do we have instead, in Unreal Tournament 3, if not a Tournament?  Calling it Gears of War 1.5 is a good place to start.  

Unreal Tournament never really had a defining artstyle to call its own, but it was still recognizable.  UT99 had its harsh shadows and pockets of bright light on largely cool-colored maps, a very neo-industrial/tech vibe with a smattering of ancient temples thrown in there to call back to Unreal.  UT2003 and 4 turned their tech maps into something a bit shinier overall, left a bit of industrial grunge in, had their fun with future space techno Egypt, and splashed a bit of East Asian architecture in one or two maps for good measure.  Colors were bright, each map had an identifiable pallette, and it's hard to confuse one for the other.

UT3 came out after Gears of War, which means it looked like this:

Not helping matters is the new direction character design was taken, which basically boils down to taking Gears character out of their usual armor and putting them in UT styled suits.  Malcolm’s there and he's put on about 200 pounds of muscle.

Man, just look at all those graphics.  And it's a good thing there are so many, because otherwise how would we know what we're looking at when the dramatic cutscenes play?

Because since we have no Tournament in our Unreal Tournament game, we of course have to have a very dramatic story about a Krall invasion and this guy named Ronin’s quest to get revenge.  

Let's unpack that.

The Krall invaded.  The Krall, the mercenary/slave race kept on retainer by the Skaarj, are the primary antagonists, but not the Skaarj themselves.  Ronin, an entirely new character made for this game, is the primary focus when actual series (human) mascot Malcolm is right there.  And the whole thing is a heroic revenge story, not a Tournament.

I hate this game.

So UT3 forces a series of ladder matches across all of three gametypes into a narrative nobody asked for.  If it had had anything to with the series’ history, it probably could have been acceptable, but it doesn't mean anything as it is.  Matches are now short gameplay segments in between an overproduced narrative about revenge and retribution, and they're given wholly unnecessary context.  Deathmatch is no longer literal bloodsport to entertain the masses but a gritty, brutal battle of attrition until one side wears down the other side’s respawner charges.  Capture the Flag isn't a game, it's you taking a daring and gritty shot at capturing your ugly, inhuman enemy’s Field LAttice Generator to turn off their respawner.  Warfare/Onslaught isn't a fun territory control match, it's a gritty and unrelentingly brutal comment on how war is hell, as you capture territory to destroy the Core that powers your gritty enemy’s respawner.

Do you get it.  Respawners.  Real war.  Not a game anymore.  No fun allowed.

Sigh.

This game came out when I was late into highschool, and was one of the first games I was super excited about.  Back then I didn't actually play all that many games, tending instead to stick to a smallish library of my favorites.  So when UT3 was announced, originally as Unreal Tournament 2007, I was hyped.  It would be one of the first games on the brand-new Unreal Engine 3, and the handful of prerelease screenshots kept my attention for months with their unparalleled lighting and detail.  Blurbs about the changes they were making excited me, talking about how they were putting a bit more speed back into the game to win over the holdouts who thought UT2004 was too slow.  An entirely new roster of vehicles was going to sit alongside the existing ones, and a whole host of changes was coming to merge the best of UT99 with UT2004.

That's what they promised.  What was actually delivered was an anemic blend of half-baked executions.  People don't like double jumping and think UT2004 is too floaty, others like double jumping and think UT99 is missing critical movement options?  UT3 keeps double jumping but makes the total jump height of both equal to a single jump in UT99, removes wall and air dodging, and adds a noticeable recovery delay after dodging from the ground.  Cool, great.

People didn't like the weapon balance changes and replacements?  Toss out the Assault Rifle, bring back the Enforcer, but make it just as inaccurate as the AR!  Make the spread on the Flak Cannon’s primary tighter, but have its alt fire shell fall off even faster than UT99’s!  

That's not to say all of the changes were bad.  Believe it or not, Unreal Tournament 3 actually does have a handful of things I really like, which makes their presence in an overall worse game all the more painful.  Vehicle physics are greatly improved, the new vehicles are amazing, Adrenaline is gone, the Rocket Launcher has its grenades back, a lot of the new weapon designs are superb, powerups are back on the map, you get a hoverboard on Warfare and VCtF maps, and I'm all out of nice things to say.  

The game, visually, is a mess (see above).  A new graphics engine means new effects to play with, but those effects here are bloom and more bloom.  Players get lost in overstuffed scenery because the artstyle inherited from Gears of War is red on brown on gray.  A more grounded overall concept strips a lot of identity from returning maps, taking them from space or exotic locales and putting them in a generic futuristic cityscape.

That's a small complaint, and totally worth dismissing, but it shows a certain lack of respect to the history of the series, to me.  These are maps that have been iconic as a whole that have been repurposed to show off how many pixels can be crammed into a skybox.  When Facing Worlds was eventually re-added in UT3’s first and only content update, it was transplanted from two opposing towers on an asteroid spinning above Earth and just set in the mountains somewhere in China.  

If you're looking at it from a pure gameplay perspective then there's nothing wrong with the change.  But it's just part of an inherent ignorance as to what players wanted from this game.  We didn't want a weird storyline where we watch Epic mush per-pixel lit action figures into each other before graciously being allowed to capture the enemy’s Field Lattice Generator three times, we wanted to mush those action figures together ourselves as we climbed higher up the ladder towards facing the Tournament champion.  We wanted to thunder across whatever alien landscapes the map designer thought up that day and add another piece to the expansive puzzle of the Unreal universe, not spend two-thirds of the game puttering around China or the generic scifi city. 

Also, in going back to get those above screenshots, I discovered something I’d entirely forgotten: there are no map descriptions.  The strongest part of that good old fashioned world building is just gone.  No more short tales of a skyscraper built by a hubris-devoured crazy person, no more small insights into the shipping lines around this or that outpost, no more glimpses at all into the world beyond the game.  For them to suddenly make such a big deal about the story, Epic sure didn’t care about anything beyond their cutscenes.

But I guess I'm getting ahead of myself.  What else is in UT3?

Not a whole lot.  With a lack of gamemodes came a lack of maps, though I suppose 41 maps was still more than you could expect at the time.  The bonus pack that turned UT3 into the “Black Edition” (I have no idea) added 19 more and did, as previously mentioned, re-add Facing Worlds.  Mutators are also lacking, with a fair chunk appearing just as basic gameplay tweaks - no hoverboard, no Orb (we'll talk about the stupid Orb), no powerups, the Arena mainstay, no Translocator (just a game setting in all previous titles), friendly fire (also a previous game setting), game speed adjustments (yep, was a setting before), and your basic Instagib/big head/super berserk mutators like you always get.  

Gone are fun things like quad jump, vampire, big wheels, slow motion corpses, all the “other UT” mutators (UT Classic and UT 2003 Style if you recall), and vehicle arena.  Remember, no fun allowed.

And I sure do wish there was fun allowed, because some things almost are.  Warfare is the star here, or at least it should have been.  Imagine:  a map five times as large as the largest Onslaught map, still joined by paths of dozens of capture nodes linked together to create distinct fronts, laced in between guided objectives reminiscent of Assault scenarios.  Completing these objectives grants you unique bonuses on your path to the enemy Core, if you can make it past the army of players and vehicles ahead…

That's what Warfare was billed as, but that's not what Warfare ended up being.  What did it turn out as?  Literally Onslaught again, but with an Orb now.  

The Orb is a game-breakingly frustrating mechanic.  Here's how it goes:  the Orb spawns at a node you control.  Someone can pick up the Orb and carry it around, shooting a giant pillar of light into the sky wherever they go.  The Orb will instantly destroy and capture any enemy node it's brought to, and will be destroyed in doing so.  The player carrying the Orb can't use any vehicle except their personal hoverboard.  

The Orb either wins games outright or does stone nothing.  See, both teams get an Orb, so what happens most of the time is that one guy uses the Orb to capture a node, then the other Orb is used to take it back.  It's not like you can use it to get a sneaky capture, because of the giant pillar of light shooting into the sky and an icon on the minimap.  The Orb is stupid, and proper control of the map makes sure that absolutely nothing comes from its presence.  So good work Epic, you added another layer to a gamemode you already stripped back to exactly what we'd gotten before, and all that comes of it is absolutely nothing.

The new vehicles are cool though.  Everything from UT2004 makes a comeback with a tweaked design, and new Necris vehicles are added as well.  They're usually just an analog of an existing vehicle except with wiggly scifi tentacles, so you get a single-person hoverthingy and a VTOL jet with lasers and missiles, but they really outdid themselves with some of the other ones.  Filling the spot of the main battle tank for the new vehicles is a giant War of the Worlds style tripod that can clamber over most obstacles and terrain.  The light attack jeep spot is a laser-toting mini-walker that can retract its tendrils and roll around as a ball, squishing people on its merry way.  Like I said, not all bad.  Oh, but only one team gets them, and not all maps support their inclusion.  So only mostly bad.

But they are all that's left of a much larger gamemode that had more and more stripped from it until they were left with literally just Onslaught but with the Orb.  

And the bad things just kept coming, this time in regards to the music.  New composers were brought in again, in the form of Jesper Kyd and Rom DiPrisco, and they make a total mess of the place.  There are a good number of “remixes” present on the soundtrack, but where the musical genius Kevin Reipl took GoDown and made Hyperblast Redux, whichever of the duo made the UT3 remix of GoDown just added some modulation and a breakbeat.  Or maybe the classic Foregone Destruction, where the UT3 version just adds some modulation and a breakbeat.  Mechanism Eight?  Modulation and a breakbeat.  Skyward Fire?  Modulation and a breakbeat.  The classic Unreal Tournament theme itself?  Modulation and a breakbeat.  The instantly recognizable stage music for UT2004’s Torlan, SDG-ONS1?  Surprisingly, a mold-breaker here: no modulation, only an added breakbeat.  And someone wailing over it.  I get that it's supposed to have a vaguely Middle Eastern or whatever sort of vibe, ‘cause the original did and Torlan itself was set in a dusty oasis sort of thing, but they changed the setting for UT3 to be more temperate so I really have no idea.

My point is that the music in UT3 sucks.  Even past the embarrassing quality of the remixes, none of the original compositions are memorable.  There's no energy, there's nothing that plays to the idea of the game, and there's no bombast.  The music probably has its fans out there, but I'm about as far from one of them as you can get.

I’m also about as far from a fan of the game itself as you can get.  When this came out, I was mainly confused as to how it could be so bad.  It’s not like it was the first time I ever didn’t like a videogame, but for Unreal Tournament of all things to turn out so bad, I just didn’t really know what I was experiencing.  UT3 was so bad that within a month I was looking up tutorials on how to use UT2004’s editor.  A year or so later Epic put UT3 on Steam and added a content pack that turned it into Unreal Tournament 3: Black Edition (I still don’t know), but that added so little that it barely made a difference.  Two new gamemodes that just amounted to new types of Deathmatch, a handful of maps, and that was it.  

People made their own maps, sure, and I’m sure if I looked now I could find mods that make it a more bearable experience.  But at the same time, I’m not really sure.  Because see, UT3 didn’t just release on PC this time around, it also came out on PS3 and the Xbox 360.  Epic wanted to bring the award-winning modding scene to those platforms as well, which means the entire process of modding and the number of things that could be modded was cut way down to adhere to guidelines from both companies as well as the much more limited space available on the console’s hard drives.  I only ever looked into mods back around when the Black Edition dropped, and the most popular mods I remember from back then is just adding a Master Chief character model.

To say that Unreal Tournament 3 was a disappointment is perhaps the biggest understatement of this entire essay.  I’m not going to rant on about how it was a betrayal of brand integrity or something, because I’m not entirely that naive, but the failure of this game to do as much right as its predecessors or even impress on any great scale meant a lot for the arena shooter genre.  Id Software had bowed out and wouldn’t reappear with Rage until years later.  Halo was wrapping up its trilogy to critical acclaim.  Call of Duty was rapidly changing the face of shooters with Call of Duty 4.  Fallout 3 was near, Bioshock had come out a year or so prior, and Gears of War 2 would cement Epic’s new direction.  

There was no redeeming followup to Unreal Tournament 3.  Nothing came out to add Assault or Domination or Bombing Run back in.  It came out, bellyflopped, and Epic let it sit in the lovingly-rendered mud full of bloom and speculars that it landed in.  

In the decade-plus since then, the face of shooters has changed again and again.  CoD4 ushered in an unrelenting push towards modern-day settings, a small subset of shooters with RPG elements grew larger, Bungie made more Halo games and then Destiny, a whole indie subgenre popped up to try to let us relive the days of Doom and Quake, then a fantastic new Doom came out, and now everyone has a battle royale.  Even Epic.  

A few years ago on the official Unreal Tournament forums on Epic’s website, a group of fans formed a plan to make their own Unreal Tournament entry under a different name.  Work started, schedules were made, and it caught Epic’s attention as so many remake projects do.  But rather than end with a Cease & Desist like just about every other one out there, a few people from Epic expressed surprise that there was such a massive push and actually pledged their own support to the project.  Unreal Tournament 4 was suddenly an official project.  

It was a strange relationship, of course - Epic’s people gave it a place in their launcher and let it use their official servers, they signed off on all major updates and made everything nice and official, but the weapon, map, and character design was going to be on the community.  We can get into the ethics of that some other time, but the point was this:  Before all that long, there was a playable Unreal Tournament 4.  Maps were using placeholder art and geometry, most of the weapons were just the UT3 models, there was one character model, and all you could play was Deathmatch, but it was coming along.  And it did come along.  The Enforcer, Link Gun, Flak Cannon, Rocket Launcher, and Sniper Rifle were all finalized and modeled, a few maps were finished entirely and look gorgeous (and play really well!), and more character models were added.  

And then Fortnite got big.  

Fortnite, a weird little Orcs Must Die-alike with building and survival elements, wasn’t much of a big name until Epic added a battle royale mode of their own, not too long after Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds swept across the Steam Early Access scene.  What that meant for the UT4 project is that the handful of official Epic people who were getting paid to curate this giant mod endeavor were suddenly reassigned to work on something a little more immediate, namely Fortnite.  

The long and short of it is that Epic killed Unreal Tournament twice in a row.  There are still arena shooters out there.  Toxikk is basically just UT2004 deathmatch with a shiny coat of paint (I played a bit, it’s okay but lacks a lot in comparison); Quake Champions is a perfectly fine hero shooter with a lot of balance problems and way too few maps, plus it’s Quake which means all the problems I have remain; Tribes: Ascend came and went just as fast as players in it moved thanks to a suddenly overaggressive monetization model; and lately I guess Dusk has its multiplayer which I hear is pretty healthy.  

The arena shooter isn’t dead; no genre really can be, and I have firsthand experience with how much work can be done to keep individual games alive, but it’s certainly not a popular choice these days.  If so much has happened to the shooter genre at large since Wolfenstein 3D came out, that much and more can happen again.  More people are playing videogames than ever, technology marches onward, and maybe one day someone in the right position with the right resources will create something that finally puts the public eye back on the most classic of multiplayer shooters.

But until then, the decade of languishing that arena shooters have been the subject of is entirely Epic Games’ fault.

[fibula-rasa]

August 2018 in Review

I have a weird memory. It’s highly pattern-driven and very visual. This means that my memory of films I’ve watched is based on images and series of images that made an impression instead of plot points. It’s why I rewatch movies so often. Even though I’ve been tracking my movie viewing habits for two and a half years, that doesn’t mean I’ve created strong memories for all those movies. That’s why I’m gonna start doing monthly roundups of the new-to-me films that struck me, one way or the other.

[If you wanna know all the films I’m watching, I keep full lists on letterboxd and imdb.]

The reviews below are essentially transcriptions of the notes I took right after watching the films. Because of Summer Under the Stars and my cosplay challenge, this month was pretty TCM heavy for me.

Full Roundup BELOW THE JUMP!

Teen Titans Go to the Movies (2018)

27 July 2018 | 84 min. | Color

Directed and Written by Aaron Horvath and Peter Rida Michail

Starring Greg Cipes, Scott Menville, Khary Payton, Tara Strong, and Hynden Walch

I’m already a fan of the show and the movie kicks it up a notch with its humor and style. [If you liked the original series, give TTG a chance already.] TTG to the Movies is a great superhero movie for anyone who’s down for superhero stories but is fatigued by the current spate of offerings. Grain-of-Salt warning here because I think Superman III (1983) is great.  

Fun that they included some gags here and there for the parents out there who’ve had to hear the Waffles song a few too many times. Also, one of the best ending gags for a kid’s movie ever.

Where to Watch: Still in theaters, but I’d imagine Cartoon Network will be playing it soon.

Doctor X (1932)

27 August 1932 | 76 min. | 2-strip Technicolor

Directed by Michael Curtiz

Written by Earl Baldwin and Robert Tasker

Starring Lionel Atwill, Lee Tracy, and Fay Wray

I made the statement that Darkman (1990) is the most comic-book movie that isn’t adapted from a comic book. I hadn’t seen Doctor X yet though.

The set pieces are phenomenal. Each shot is artfully constructed and the way the shots are strung together makes the most of the production design. If one were to do a comic adaptation, it would take some imaginative work to not just mimic the film. The 2-strip technicolor is particularly effective in the laboratory scenes in creating an eerie aura. Sensational.

Lee Tracy is playing, as usual, a press man and he’s doing so perfectly. Tracy is so underrated.

Where to Watch: Looks like the DVD is out of print, so maybe check your local library or video store. TCM plays it every once and a while and, since Warner Bros has a deal with Filmstruck, I wouldn’t be surprised to see it pop up there eventually.

The Half-Naked Truth (1932)

16 December 1932 | 77 min. | B&W

Directed by Gregory La Cava

Written by Corey Ford and Gregory La Cava

Starring Frank Morgan, Eugene Pallette, Lee Tracy, and Lupe Velez

You might very well think Lee Tracy was a featured TCM star this month. (Maybe next SUTS? Pretty please.)

Lupe Velez is so talented and natural it was nice to see her in a film where her wits were matched. I’ll be honest, I’m a big Lupe fan but, for most of her films, she’s the only good reason to watch them. This wasn’t the case here! There are a lot of wonderful moments with small movements and gestures that make Velez and Tracy’s relationship feel very real, as if they’re actually that caught up in one another. Eugene Pallette, Franklin Pangborn, and Frank Morgan round out the ensemble. The running eunuch joke might not be all that funny, but it’s a masterclass in not saying what you mean. Also, very cute chihuahua.

Where to Watch: The DVD is available from the Warner Archive. (So, once again, local library or video store might have a copy.)

The Cuban Love Song (1931)

5 December 1931 | 86 min. | B&W

Directed by W.S. Van Dyke

Written by John Lynch, Bess Meredith, and C. Gardener Sullivan

Starring Jimmy Durante, Lawrence Tibbett, Ernest Torrance, and Lupe Velez

Lupe is wonderful in this. She plays a Cuban woman who sounds an awful lot like a Mexican woman--which might be something you have to overlook to enjoy the film FYI. Lawrence Tibbett has a shocking dearth of charisma in the lead, but Jimmy Durante, Ernest Torrence, and Louise Fazenda take the heat off him well. It’s a little hard to root for Tibbett’s character and the ending is disappointing. (Spoiler: privileging of the affluent “white” couple.)

The songs are great. I love the habit of placing people in musicals so that they are singing full force directly into each other’s faces. I don’t know why I find it so funny, but it’s not a mood ruiner for Cuban Love Song. The editing is fun and energetic. Until the war breaks out, there’s a lot of solid humor.

After watching so many Lupe films this month, I’d love to sit down with people who do and don’t know Spanish to talk about her films. There seem to be some divisions on social media and across blogs about Lupe’s films that might be attributable to whether or not one understands Spanish. I myself understand Spanish reasonably well and I think knowing what Lupe and others are saying makes almost all of her films funnier. And boy, does Lupe like calling men stupid animals.

Where to Watch: This one seems kinda rare. Looks like there may have been a VHS release, but you may just have to wait for TCM to play it again!

The Night Stalker (1972)

11 January 1972 | 74 min. | Color

Directed by John Llewellyn Moxey

Written by Jeffrey Grant Rice and Richard Matheson

Starring Carol Lynley, Darren McGavin, and Simon Oakland

and

The Night Strangler (1973)

16 January 1973 | 74 min. | Color

Directed by Dan Curtis

Written by Jeffrey Grant Rice and Richard Matheson

Starring Darren McGavin, Simon Oakland, and Jo Ann Pflug

I loved that these films are exactly like the Kolchak TV series. My SO and I have been watching the show weekly as it airs on MeTV and so he surprised me by renting the movies that kicked off the series. Honestly, watching backwards may have made the movies even more entertaining. How is Kolchak still working for Vincenzo in Las Vegas?? The answer is in Seattle.

The TV movies were intended as a trilogy, but after the success of the first two films, it was developed into a series instead. It’s cool to see how every piece of the Kolchak formula was in place immediately and how firmly Darren McGavin had a hold on the character. His chemistry with Simon Oakland (Vincenzo) is spectacular--a great comedy duo TBH. If you like their shouting matches on the show, Night Strangler has a humdinger to offer you.

Night Stalker is a pretty straight-forward vampire story, written by Richard Matheson, one of the great spec-fic writers of the 1960s and 1970s. Matheson also wrote one of the best undead novels of all time, I am Legend. What elevates the film over the basic mythology, aside from the great performances, pacing, and editing, is that the story’s really about how suppression actually goes down--how mundane and frustrating it can be even in the face of the supernatural.

Night Strangler is a little more creative with its monster. They integrate the nature and landmarks of Seattle in fun ways. The stripper characters are delightful. Jo Ann Pflug gives a truly funny performance and feels like a natural contender for Kolchak. Even his romantic relationships should be affectionately combative. The ditzy lesbian, Charisma Beauty (Nina Wayne) is hilarious and Wayne’s timing is impeccable. (BTW: they don’t explicitly call her a lesbian but it’s still made very overt.) There’s also a wonderful cameo by Margaret Hamilton.

As far as I can tell, it’s easier to get access to these films than the series. They’re worth seeing even if you haven’t seen the Kolchak TV show. They’re also a good pick if you’re a fan of X-Files, as Kolchak is the mother of that show. Even though I’m an X-Files fan and grew up watching it, Kolchak is edging it out for me lately. Maybe because if you’re telling a story about fighting for truth against the suppression of information, you undercut yourself by making the protagonist a fed.

Where to Watch: Kino Lorber is releasing restored editions of the films on Blu-ray and DVD in October!

The Mask of Dimitrios (1944)

1 July 1944 | 95 min. | B&W

Directed by Jean Negulesco

Written by Frank Gruber

Starring Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Zachary Scott

This was great! I loved Peter Lorre and Sydney Greenstreet together. If you’re looking for a mystery story that flows and escalates well and presents a parade of interesting characters and locales, Dimitrios is for you. It’s also always nice to see Lorre in the lead.

Where to Watch: The DVD is available from the Warner Archive. (So, once again, local library or video store might have  copy.)

Strait-Jacket (1964)

19 January 1964 | 93 min. | B&W

Directed by William Castle

Written by Robert Bloch

Starring Diane Baker and Joan Crawford

I mentioned in my Joan Crawford CUTS post that I’d been meaning to see this for years. My enjoyment of the film didn’t suffer a bit from that length of anticipation.

I like William Castle’s movies a lot. I like the campy humor and quirky stories. This one is campy still, but not as heavy on the humor--unless you have a real weird sense of humor. That’s not a strike against Strait-Jacket though. Castle builds so much tension that by the end of the film, you feel like anyone could be axe-murdered at any moment, which becomes absurdly fun. The ending might be a little predictable, but it’s fun to go along for the ride. I didn’t particularly like the tacked on ending but I guess every JC movie needs to end on JC?

Largely unrelated, but if you’re a Castle fan, have you checked out his TV show Ghost Story/Circle of Fear? The first episode, The New House, in particular is top notch.

Where to Watch: It’s on Blu-ray and DVD from Sony (your local library or video store might have a copy) and it’s for rent on Amazon Prime. It’s also still on-demand via TCM for another few days.

One I didn’t write up: Cairo (1942). I brought up in my Jeanette MacDonald post that I was hoping to find a MacDonald film I enjoyed watching on her Summer Under the Stars day and I did!

[heat0death0of0the0universe]

Ok, I feel like we aren't thinking big enough about this. And as the resident over thinker and person who loves the exploration of long-term effects from impossible implications, I must do so.

First we must establish several limitations.

1) beast boy, furthermore referred to as Gar, can turn into any living thing. As established by several sources that show him transforming into demons and aliens. (Note: while I have no idea if gar can become gods or eldritch beings that live beyond the veil, the idea of defeating trigon by having gar turn into a green trigon amuses me)

2) all of his transformations have a distinct palette of green. Not a hue green, not a slight green coloring, full on palette change with only green

3) from my understanding gar cant control his power on the cellular level. He cant become a centaur via a human and horse body and he cant give himself the cells of a tardigrade but keep his human shape. So it seems less like gar is rearranging his cells to look like a tiger, but more like he is changing his cells to become a version of an animal. Like those pet au's were it's the same character as a dog. So he becomes a gar version of an animal, so he cant change into different creatures in the species. This is also why he cant change into other humans, he is already his human-version. (Now whether he can turn into different genders and sexes in the species is under debate, but will be ignored for simplicity)

4) gar keeps his powers and mind in any of his forms. Even in animals that couldn't reasonably house his mind or thoughts, he can still joke and fight while still transforming. So his animal versions do have some differences from the norm

If gar did decide to do this he would have to find a reasonable amount of tigers to keep genetic diversity. While I dont know the number needed, its highest range would probably be in the hundreds.

Being an endangered species on the cusp of extinction, that'd be a problem. Odds are that gar couldn't help a species if it was just him and it last member left to repopulate. Even than he'd probably only help for a generation, two or three generations if we wanted to keep with the unethical experiment.

But what about his powers? Were looking at this from a logical standpoint, a stand point that doesn't congeal with a man that can shape shift.

Keeping with the tiger example. He fertilizes several. Tigers can have two to four Cubs. So we're looking at at least double digits on the first population. Most or all of whom are green. Ir at the very least green-ish. The palette would be a definite stay. The powers could be more of a chance. Same goes for the intellect. But even than the world is now stuck with a tiger population that is green, and where some of its members have human intellect and can turn into any animal they want.

Flash forward several years. Zoos cant keep tigers any more. Breeding programs have removed the last of the true tigers. Those smart enough to be human but dont have powers are seen as horrific examples of isolation as they are basically humans. Ones with intellect and power just leave the zoo and live as super powered humans that are mild confused when people complain about them eating the birds. The ones with just the powers do what animals do best, follow instinct. It's really a chance on what they do. Sometimes they eat the other animals. Other times they use the shape shifting powers to mate with the other animals.

Several more decades. Society has begun to change. Humans are still the majority. Intelligent Animals shapeshifted into humans are second. And and animals with human intellect are lowest in population, buts still have large numbers. The ecosystem is all out of whack. 50% of all animals species have super powered members. Krill turn into sharks when whales try and eat them, then the whales turn into squids, and so on. Originally animals are largely being fazed out. You thought ants were bad now? Wait till your local ant colony has the intellect of a small country and decides its had enough of your shit

Even more time. Every. Single. Thing. Is. Green. Humans, animals, even the bugs and bacteria used for dying are green. It's so green. Basically everything on earth can think at a human level. Shapeshift is a mostly common power. Some islands are separate from zoo-manity, but every once and a while a tribe of intelligent animals rises and earth goes through the legal measures of deciding if they should introduce them too. Everything is vegan or eat lab grown meat because of the implications of having every animal think at a human level

We haven't even gotten into space yet, cuz we know aliens are a thing in the comics. I'd love to write more, but I'm running out of battery and talking points

here’s my question……………if an animal was extremely endangered, like borderline almost extinct…..could beast boy……y’know…..

[sourabhdubey007]

How To Use Graph and Chart Plugins

Whether you’re a researcher compiling data about a local election or a teacher sharing data about the local wildlife population with your class, there are no better substitutes than charts and graphs. These visual tools turn boring, seemingly worthless data into easily-digestible information. Presenting data to your blog readers as the straight text gets boring very quickly and it takes much longer for most people to understand tables and text descriptions. If you have a lot of data, you need to get the point across in an effective way, and charts can help. Data visualization is the process of taking raw (usually numerical) data and converting them into a visual presentation. Techniques for converting raw data have existed for many decades already. It is better to add dynamic graphs that can be easier to update. There are a number of chart and graph WordPress plugins that you can install to ensure amazing looking data. This can boost sales and attract a better audience.

Best WordPress Chart Plugins :

Visualizer

With over ten thousand active installs and a 4.6-star satisfaction rating, Visualizer: Charts and Graphs is the most popular plugin in the WordPress plugin repository for creating, managing and embedding interactive charts into WordPress posts and pages. Create responsive, fully-customizable tables and charts, edit them directly on your posts with our excel-like editor or import the data from your database. When you install the plugin, you will be able to easily locate the button for Visualizer in the WordPress classic editor toolbar. If you are also using the Gutenberg plugin, you will see the option for Visualizer in the main block menu. Do make sure that the visual editor mode is turned on or else you won’t be able to see the button. You can easily upload the data for your chart or file through a CSV file through direct uploads or imports via URLs. In the pro version, you will get four extra chart types including timeline charts, combo charts, gauge charts, and candlestick charts. The best feature in the premium plugin version is the ability to design new charts from pages and posts. There are also more additional charts available as well which can add functionality, ability to edit, and creating private charts. The plugin makes use of Google Visualization API so as to add charts, which aid pass-browser compatibility (adopting VML for older IE types) and go-platform portability to iOS and new Android releases. Adding a chart to your site is done via the Visualizer Library, which is added under the WordPress Media Library. The data for your chart is pulled in from a CSV file, either uploaded directly or linked to online. The latter allows you to base your chart on a Google Spreadsheet, for example. The data types that are allowed include string, number, boolean, date, time date, and time of day. Once a chart is created, it is added to the post or page with a shortcode.

Features

Multiple chart types

Customizable chart displays

Can link to a spreadsheet by URL

Custom hooks

Cross-browser and cross-platform rendering

WP Charts and Graphs

WordPress Charts is one of the best plugins in its niche, with over 15,000 downloads and a 4.8 rating on WordPress.org, Many users like it for the clean designs, animations, and colorful options. However, also be aware that it hasn’t been updated for quite a while. This data visualization WordPress plugin is all set to get you going, even if you are not really tech-savvy. From your admin panel, you can create the chart that you fancy and see the live preview first before you go live. If it needs any additional tweaks, now is the time to make them happen. There are six main types of chart types that you can design: doughnut chart, polar area chart, line chart, pie chart, and radar chart. You can insert them into your post or page easily via widgets or shortcodes. All of these charts are built using HTML5. The customization options are pretty much endless, but you will have to know a little bit about coding, shortcodes, or at least adjusting the default settings.  The developer has promised several appealing features in the near feature—including color pallette styling options, a revamped chart creation process, and a table chart type.

Features

On-page data editing

15 chart types – 6 from Charts.js and 12 from Google charts

Easy to import database

Automatic data synchronization by creating schedules

Animated charts

Private charts

Chart creation based on your WP posts, attachments, or pages

Instant search

Filter results based on text

Multi-column ordering

Permission feature to control viewing and editing of charts

Responsive Charts

Responsive Charts is one of the best plugins for people who want an affordable option. It lets you create seven interactive charts that will look amazing on your WordPress.org site. The charts are made through charts.js and you can make radar charts, bootstrap progress bars, doughnut chart, pie chart, bar chart, polar chart, and line chart.Responsive Charts is an affordable chart solution that lets you create seven animated chart types. Want to use Chart.js with WordPress but don’t know how? Responsive Charts got your back! HTML5 friendly and animation-powered charts for all! Select the chart type from a dropdown, specify the width and title, and customize colors any way you like. Because of Canvas (HTML5), the charts come out really well rounded and function equally smooth on any device type or size.

Features

Animated responsive charts

CSV data import

Customizable charts

Uncommon chart types (e.g. radar, progress bars)

Uber Chart

The advanced WP plugin with excellent customization, UberChart lets you create charts of different varieties. It offers 240 options for each chart and 30 options for each data set in order to create charts tailored to your specific requirements. You can export and import data with the click of a button, and the responsive design ensures that all your graphs show up on every device. Some of the chart types include- Line charts, Area charts, Bar charts, Pie charts, Doughnut charts, Bubble charts. You can also modify the charts later with a few clicks of a button, which is really great if you want to update them. You can also duplicate some charts to use them as templates for any new charts that you want to add to your WordPress site. You can import data onto the plugin using a CVS file. The best thing is that you can even copy and paste the data from an Excel or Google spreadsheet. There are a ton of styling options, including padding, margins, colors, radius length and more. A preview of your chart is displayed in the heart of the settings page. It offers general customization options to define a chart’s general behavior such as setting the size, background color, and margin, whether you want chart responsiveness or not, type and speed of animation, title and legend behavior, tooltip style, etc. This plugin is a simple way to create charts and is not very expensive, so if you need animated charts, it may be a good option for you. Using the spreadsheet editor, you can copy data to UberChart from an online spreadsheet such as Google Sheets, MS Excel, etc. and vice versa. You can also add data easily and drag rows and columns. The import and export option is also available to backup your charts in the form of XML files.

amCharts

Up next on our list is amCharts , which has over one thousand active installs and a 5 star satisfaction rating. Though less popular, this plugin has received some great reviews.amCharts is the best plugin for more advanced WordPress bloggers and users who are past the basic simple tools that other plugins provide. The plugin was developed by the charts and maps Javascript service, amcharts . Adding JavaScript Maps and Charts into a WordPress post is an invitation to annoyance. It is because WP removes all the JavaScript content. amCharts saves you from this trouble by letting you create code. Nine types of charts are available: XY chart, pie chart, sliced chart, sankey diagram, radar chart, gauge chart, chord diagram, treemap and map. In the plugin settings area, you can choose whether resources are stored remotely or locally. You can also add custom resources to the existing extensive list of Javascript libraries.

The post How To Use Graph and Chart Plugins appeared first on The Coding Bus.

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[rabbitindisguise]

Watercolors for Beginners (on a budget)

All these watercolor artists on YouTube have their favorite “expensive” brushes, meanwhile Jay Lee, who is an incredible artist, uses $4-5 dollar brushes. I’m not a fan of the cheapest ones still, like the $7 packs, because it’s hard for them to retain shape. The best brush for you- like writing software- is a brush you know well over a brush some artist in a fancy studio says Will Get Results. I think this is something that should have been obvious to me after learning photography equipment is more about skill than dollars once you get a DSLR or mirrorless, but enough about that. If you want to get into watercolor, here’s my advice a year in.

Materials

A standard round brush really is the most important brush- unless it isn’t. You can exclusively use flats, and it can add an interesting stylistic aspect to you work. But a round can do pretty much anything you ask from it. Generally, this brush is a size #8, #10, or a #12. If you splurge on anything at all, it should be your base brush, who will be with you for a very long time. Paint and paper are “consumables” so eventually they get used up, but a brush, even a ratty old one, is basically forever. Treat it well.

Some kind of large wash brush, like an oval brush, dagger brush, quill brush, or large flat brush. Or even thick, four inch wide, and slightly terrifying ones for wall sized large surfaces. Whichever one you pick, a large brush really does help give the smoothest washes and gradients for large areas.

Either a rigger brush, small round brush, small/medium flat brush, or even a fan brush. Riggers are good for detail and natural lines, fans for cool effects and lines, and flats for thick or thin lines. That said, these brushes do help certain styles. Riggers are excellent for naturalistic painters who like trees, and they’re also good for painting, well … rigging on ships. The fan is good for abstract, and the flat for geometric shapes specifically, but both of them have many more uses than just those. Rounds are the most multipurpose due to their influence on watercolor in the United States is, and a smaller size can be useful for detail work. All these different brushes fit into one category because they can do each other’s most important job, which is to make super thin lines.

Pans or tubes Don’t worry about cost because they’re about the same. Student grade is okay. I swear. If you’re not displaying your physical paper copies yet, relax. Lightfastness doesn’t exist on the internet. (Tip: learn Photoshop so that your watercolors will look good online, it will make a world of a difference.) If it helps to use the cheapest 7 pan set made by a crayon company so you actually paint, so be it. You’ll have to overcome your fear of using expensive materials eventually though, so student grade is a good medium between the two. Try and pick a brand that has both artist and student quality if you can afford it, so you can reuse pans if you pick that option.

Fluid, Canson, Arches, etc are some good name brands but explore your local art store or online options available cheaply (if you like goulash you can even use regular cardboard). Cold press is good for naturalistic subjects, absorbency, and texture. Hot press is smooth, less absorbent, and allows for re-wetting. Most people use coldpress, it has that classic watercolor look. There are also two main weights for paper, 140 lb which is often cheaper, and 300 lb which comes in higher qualities, often in large sheets. 140lb is best held down or in blocks, 300lb can be painted on its own, which is good for painting outdoors. You can also use the backside of both weights, 140 lb and 300 lb. Remember, this is LB as in pound. Some will say “300 series” or whatever. What’s really important is the weight, not the arbitrary classification by a company.

Fun stuff. Brushes that look weird. Metallic paints. Salt, water brush pens, saran wrap, natural sponges, and masking fluid. Water based ink. Complex mixing pallettes and jar systems to avoid having to get up mid-painting. Paint is supposed to be fun, or intellectually stimulating, or expressive, or whatever reasons you have for doing it in the first place. If making glorious paintings with three primaries in the woods using creek water in a cup sounds like a good time: ignore this next bit, and I respect you. If you’re trying to force yourself to do boring things because of online advice telling you to hammer the basics into your very soul before having fun, here’s the contradicting advice: have fun. It makes for better art, if nothing else.

TL;DR: moderately cheap paper is okay, to a point, which is the 140 lb minimum. Student grade paints are good for work you won’t display. You need three brushes, including a basic brush (#8 round is what I use), a detail brush (#4 rigger for me), and a wash brush (I have lots, even though I paint postcards, so definitely try to plan ahead for your standard paper size).

Extra information: having lots of brushes is really very fun- especially when you have some that you can mistreat. I don’t regret buying the other brushes at all. Go the cheap pack route if you haven’t figured out what “snappy” means, or shedding, or other qualities that makes good brushes good. Going cheap helps you appreciate the nuance of a better brush and gives you a good base, like downloading a basic texture pack for digital art, and something to scrub paint off pans with when they wear out.

I haven’t recommended any brands for a reason, which is there is a lot of brand loyalty among watercolor artists. Plus, I think you should do your own technical (lightfastness, qualities) and experiential (how does it Feel) judging. This is true of brushes, paper, and paint. If you’re totally lost on brushes, watch this video by witty gritty paper co, and this video by Liron, and this other video by Liron. For more research, there’s lots of science behind the quality of brushes, especially water uptake. ProArte is the only brand I know of using prolene synthetic material, which has better water uptake than standard synthetic, and you can find some packs online. I recommend the set with the rigger brush, because large wash brushes naturally hold a lot anyway. Oh, and synthetic is far cheaper than natural hair brushes. With paint and paper, sticking to name brands is a good guideline.

Again, one more time for emphasis. Take care of your brushes. Wet them a little while (Brush Experts™ recommend 30 minutes, I just do it at the same time I wet my pans) before you begin. Clean them thoroughly. Shape them to a point after use. Masking fluid can gunk up your brush, so be careful. Most importantly, don’t press too hard! Watercolor brushes are soft so that they can use the specific properties of water to carry pigment, and bending the bristles can disrupt that. Don’t drag them on the bottom of your water cups, don’t dig them down to the ferrules (the shiny metal or plastic bit) into your paper, and don’t scrape them along the paper unintentionally without enough water. Doing even a couple of these will drastically increase the lifespan of your brush.

Cost breakdown

About $15-20 on brushes, $35ish on paints, and as little as $7 on reasonably sized paper. It’s usually about .50¢ to $1 a sheet, and a pan set or set of tubes will last you a very, very long time. Many artists start using artist grade paints before they run out of student grade. This is about $62, which is a lot of money! So don’t be afraid of the absolute cheapest watercolors, but it’s important to fund your passions, too. You can absolutely start with one quality brush ($5 vs $20), tiny paper ($5), and decent student grade ($35) for $45 and still have everything you really need. Karia on YouTube should be coming out with more reviews, in addition to the ones already posted, on different cheaper materials that could help you save costs, too. Going to a store to avoid shipping helps on top of that, and gives you a chance to compare brush size vs your paper, and to see the different paint options next to each other.

A lot of this post was just me synthesizing information, so definitely check out the people below. These are free excellent watercolor tutorials, material reviews, advanced techniques, and more. I’m just starting in watercolor, but I remember being disappointed there wasn’t any guide on Tumblr on where to spend money and where you can save and still learn something. I hope this guide helps, in some way, to fill that gap, and it wouldn’t exist if I hadn’t had access to videos like these online.

Channel Recommendations

Jay Lee has fantastic tutorials at many levels of skill, mostly works with flowers and brighter colors. This channel is a good option for visual learners, and combines basic exercises with complex brushwork well. Also, this artist freehands, which means no outlining beforehand.

Liron Yanconsky doesn’t traditionally work in watercolor so there are fewer videos than than other content. Still, there are a lot of material and technical discussion, which was incredibly helpful when I was just starting. Liron mostly works with a natural pallette with landscapes. A special aspect of Liron’s paintings are the use of perspective. On top of that, there are multiple speedpaints to help with figuring out how light to dark works. This channel in particular is good for auditory learners, because he talks about everything from technique to mental blocks common to artists. Very interesting stuff, definitely subscribe.

Karia has a similar background to Liron, and the channel is much more low key. I especially like the cat visitors during the videos. The channel doesn’t really discuss much art wise, but still offers good content. Also, you can donate directly to Karia from the links in the description! Definitely consider it, based off all the hard to find comparison videos of paints.

TheWittyGrittyPaperCo is actually a company channel, run by Meredith, who is a self taught (through YouTube) watercolor artist. The channel has a fantastic overview of the basics, including materials, exercises, and other tips. A few specialized aspects are portraits and lettering. It’s also the kind of channel that talks about things that even google has a hard time answering- how much water, how to use new watercolor materials, legal things like reference photos, etc. I have used these videos the most I think, especially small tips buried in the longer videos, to improve my work. Like Jay Lee’s channel, there are tutorials for visual learners. I almost don’t need to subscribe because I revisit the videos so often.

Susan Harrison-Tustain is a watercolor artist from New Zealand who has some incredible instructional videos. Many of them discuss techniques that just aren’t that common on youtube. Susan even has her own brush series. Considering the information is usually found on DVDs, it’s worth at least one watch to learn terms and see specific effects.

Ekaterina Smirnova is another incredible artist. This channel includes tutorials, techniques, materials, and more. Many of these tutorials are freehand, and include both auditory information and visual information. There’s also videos in Russian. The channel updates regularly, but not often, so it would beneficial to subscribe if you like he videos.

That’s it! My inbox is open for anyone that needs help, there’s so much info I just couldn’t include because it was getting long enough already.

EDIT: I waaay over estimated the money for the paints. Cotman watercolors (a half decent beginner 12 color set) is only $13, making the basics cost only $23! I also forgot to mention a hand towel and ceramic plate to sacrifice to the pigments. The hand towel is for drying your brush to control water flow, and the plate is for mixing and diluting. Bought new, it would only be around $5 at most, but I'm assuming you might already have them.

[kiribbeanplays-blog]

Character Critiques: Poliwag Family

Another ridiculously simple-looking, but pleasing character design: Poliwag!

Sometimes, there are character designs so minimalistic, I can’t help but think, “Man, I wish I could have gotten away with something like that in my college character drawing class.” From a purely facetious perspective, Poliwag seems to be “just” a sphere with a face and stumpy legs.

But “minimalist” doesn’t automatically mean “bad.” Oddish, for example, stole my heart despite being a plain radish. Fortunately for Poliwag, what it does have in its presentation - however nominal - works well. It’s a streamlined portrayal of tadpoles, right down to the translucent skin that’s present on some species!

(Photo credit: Paul A. Zahl)

Indeed, that swirl on Poliwag’s tummy represents its visible intestines! As an added bonus, it can undulating the marking to hypnotize its enemies, just as you’d expect from such a symbol. It’s impressive how a single basic shape was used so effectively!

My one critique about Poliwag is that its eyes shouldn’t be perfectly flat on its face. A few older sprites showed them bulging out, which I feel is a better fit with the bug-eyed appearance of the real things.

At the end of the day, however, it’s just a personal nitpick that doesn’t affect Poliwag’s overall appeal.

It may be a sphere with a face and stumpy legs, but Poliwag is a solid minimalist tadpole character.

As expected from a tadpole, Poliwag has undergone metamorphosis into a frog… sort of. It’s not quite there yet, being halfway between the two forms.

Amusingly, despite Poliwhirl evolving to walk around on two legs, it's arms don’t seem entirely developed. Its hands are adorable mittens that it curls into boxing gloves. Poliwhirl will eventually become half-Fighting if it evolves into Poliwrath, so this concept makes sense.

For a little extra trivia, the front legs on real frogs are often the last to grow when they deviate from their tadpole origins. With this knowledge, the “mitten” hands work perfectly with Poliwhirl’s design!

Even more, there’s a species of frog with its organs still fully visible - the glass frog!

(Photo credit: Joel Sartore)

Poliwhirl’s spiral belly would be fine even without the existence of the glass frog, but it’s impressive to see how much research went behind its design!

Poliwhirl addresses my critique about Poliwag’s eyes - they now clearly bulge from the top of its body. I think this looks much more interesting on the character, with an added bonus of giving Poliwhirl a stronger silhouette.

A bipedal brawling frog is a wacky and fun concept. Poliwhirl does more than be Pokémon’s “obligatory” frog monster, and in a good way!

Oh dear...

Poliwrath, dude… did we not recently discuss the “barely any different” problem a couple articles ago?

To be fair, Poliwrath kind of follows my stance about minor Pokémon evolutions. To compensate for the lack of any significant changes (apart from its hands), its overall body shape is different… if you squint really hard.

I think Poliwrath’s design could be enhanced to better reflect its brawny build. I’m not saying it has to be exaggerated like a bodybuilder, but it should have a little extra definition to its body shape so that one doesn’t have to squint to tell it apart from Poliwhirl.

Let me step away from bashing Poliwrath’s visual design and talk about the lore behind it. Perhaps things get more interesting there.

There’s actually a catch to evolving Poliwhirl into Poliwrath. It’s another one of those Pokémon obtainable only through an evolutionary stone - in this case, a Water Stone. When you think about how Poliwrath becomes part Fighting-type, it’s like the player character has to throw steroids at the beast to build its muscles. I’m speaking about this concept theoretically, as the Pokédex doesn’t back up that last statement. Regardless, it’s a hilariously awesome thought.

Even with that thought in mind, Poliwrath is still incredibly underwhelming. Water Stones aren’t nearly as rare as Moon Stones, but the point is that you have to go out of your way to find this special item just to evolve your Pokémon. All that work and effort, and all that Poliwhirl becomes is… “Poliwhirl 2.0,” but with the Fighting type added.

I feel awful dismissing a Pokémon with that terrible joke, I really do. I’ve done it several times now, and I feel it makes me look like I expect every monster to reinvent themselves when they evolve. But I can’t escape the feeling that Poliwrath could be just a little more. The idea for the character is there, but it needs some fine-tuning to its visual design to truly shine.

Well, I suppose I got my wish after all. I complained that Poliwrath looked too “boring,” and then Generation II introduced a second evolution for Poliwhirl to pick from. By physically trading Poliwhirl to another Trainer while holding an item called the King’s Rock, it takes this alternate path into Politoed.

A neon green, more normal-looking frog is certainly a surprising twist for Poliwhirl. The “identity crisis” argument could be made on account of the stark contrast between the plain Water-type Politoed and the Water-Fighting Poliwrath. But if you ask me, I don’t feel that Politoed is a terrible fit with the rest of the Poliwag line.

For one, the central “tadpole metamorphosis” theme remains in-tact, even if Poliwhirl becomes Politoed. In context with the Poliwag family, it’s a conspicuous design that doesn’t require explanation through flavor text. Compare this to Bellossom, who had diddly squat in its biography to clear up why it abandoned the rafflesia arnoldii concept.

An interesting thought is how Poliwhirl can either disrupt normal tadpole growth and remain as a half-frog monster, or it can mature into a frog proper. This is a wonderful idea devised by the artists at Game Freak, and I can’t believe the Pokémon franchise is about the only time I’ve seen such a thing in action!

I adore how all of Politoed’s visual elements are arranged. It has a limited color pallette that it uses superbly, using splashes of yellow to add more texture and variance on its bright green body. The single strand of curly hair may feel somewhat random to its design, but it adds a whimsical charm to Politoed’s character. Coupled with those beaming eyes, Politoed is an all-around precious character design.

I’m glad that the spiral intestines weren’t entirely left out of Politoed’s design. It’s still hinted by the big swirl on its tummy. It helps keep Politoed’s composition balanced, as having the exact same spiral as Poliwag’s would have likely overwhelmed the rest of its design.

I haven’t even gotten into why Politoed is obtained through a King’s Rock. Well, it’s more of a theory, as the games don’t actually explain what a “King’s Rock” is. Basically, it’s this little stone crown, as seen below:

This item makes more sense when reading Politoed’s Pokédex entries. A few games mention that Poliwag and Poliwhirl are instinctively drawn - even obedient - to Politoed’s loud, echoing croaks. In a way, Politoed “rules over” its pre-evolved brethren.

Poliwhirl needs the King’s Rock so that it can become a frog emperor to all the other little frogs in the world. That’s an exceptionally precious detail to an already darling character!

If there’s one major critique I can get off my shoulders, it’s that Politoed has an unbearably atrocious idle animation in the Generation VI+ Pokémon games.

Are you kidding me, Game Freak? It just vacantly stares into space with its arms lazily dangling, like you did with Meowth? You practically animated it in a t-pose! Unbelieveable!

Look back up at Politoed’s official artwork. Look at how dynamic it’s posed just by raising its arms. Take a look at its sprite animation from Black/White Version - hell, even gander at the energy in its pitiful Emerald Version animation!

Even if Politoed was modeled to be sitting down like it used to in the Generation II games, at least the minimal animation would be excusable. It’d be at rest, so of course it wouldn’t be moving much!

Oh well, good thing that my strict analysis of a 3D model isn’t a dealbreaker for my love of Politoed.

Politoed is one of those characters that makes me smile to look at. Visually, it’s somewhat of a curveball as an evolution for Poliwhirl. At the same time, I feel it fits right in with the rest of the evolutionary family.

Before I end this article, there’s one piece of trivia I wanted to share, but couldn’t find enough credible sources to back it up. Politoed is one of the few Pokémon who can have Drizzle as its ability. I have a distinct memory that this references folklore surrounding frogs as rainmakers and signs of a good harvest. However, this is the only remotely credible source I found, suggesting it’s a general Native American belief. Since this website doesn’t have a bibliography, and was the only website I found with this information, I can only add this potential trivia as a side note.

[lancecarr]

Media Composer 2019 ֠A step in the right direction?

The day has come for Media Composer editors.  As the line went in Star Wars …”It will be a day long remembered”.  The release of Media Composer 2019(.6) (MC2019), is one that Avid has been pushing for a while now.  We’ve seen the NAB demos, and the live user group feeds showing it off, but the question still remains….Is it a step in the right direction? Well, this “review” is more going to look at answering that question as opposed to getting in and talking about new features.  Don’t get me wrong, we’ll discuss (and show you via tutorials), some of the new features in MC2019, but more look at if this is something that will get editors to switch to, or switch back to, with their upcoming projects.

Media Composer as always been very rigid in how it wanted to you work, and how you were to not only organize your projects, but how to organize your interface as well.  Well, that has gone the way of the Dodo (an expression I use a lot when talking about MC2019). The Project window has always been at the core of your editing experience in MC, and the Project window is no more.  Bin Containers rule the application now, and all the features like settings, Format, Hardware, Usage and many more have been tucked away in menus, only to be accessed when you need them.

This was something that, to be honest, took a little getting used to.  I’ve been using MC2019 for about two months prior to its public release, and I’ll be 100% transparent.  When I started working with it…..I hated it. I didn’t like that the project window was gone. I didn’t like the new Bin Containers. I didn’t like the idea of having to dock all my panels, tools and bins.  But, let me be clear. Much like before, you don’t have to work any particular way. You don’t have to work with docked panels and bins. I find now that the project window was a pretty big waste of space, holding tools that I really never used.  I am now, what some people might call, a “Power Docker”. I dock all my bins now constantly. I find that I can just access all my media so much faster. Here’s the thing, though. If you’re not big on docking, you can tab your bins and tools. Don’t like that idea either?  No problem, you can switch back to having Floating panels as well. Now, with the Project Window gone, how are you going to organize yourself in your editing project? That’s where Bin Containers come into play.

When you first launch the application, you’ll notice what appears to be the project window, that shows you your project bins, as well as any currently open bin.  Looks like a project window, but it isn’t. It’s a bin container broken down into two sides. The left side contains the project sidebar, and the right side has the bin pane.  What’s important to keep in mind here is that at any time if you don’t want to see either pane, NP, you can simply drag the window to the left to cover the Sidebar, or close any open bins to only see your Project Sidebar.

With the bin pane on the right, this is where you can start to “power organize” your bins either by tabs or by docking.  Here’s a tutorial that will show you what I mean.

Bin containers are a very clever way to have a “Project Window”, without having a project window.

  Let’s move on and talk now about another core feature that has stepped into the foreground with the new release of Media Composer 2019, and that is Workspaces.  Previous to MC2019, I wasn’t a Workspace user.  At all. I would only ever use it to switch over to Color Correction mode, and even then that was only sparingly.  With MC2019, I use Workspaces all the time. They go hand in hand with the dockable tools and switching back and forth for little interface changes has become so commonplace for me, I almost don’t even notice I’m doing it anymore.  A perfect example of this is when I want to apply an effect to a clip, and then step into Effects Mode to edit the effects’ parameters. The process would be to call up the Effects Pallette, choose the effect, drop it onto my clip, step into the Effect Editor, move it out of the way, into a location where there aren’t any other tools, and then adjust accordingly.  Pain in the you know what. Now what I do is in one of my Effects workspaces, I have the Effects Pallette and the Effects Editor tabbed to my Bin Container. Now with a quick click of the mouse, I can tab between windows, find what I need, and when I step into the Effects Editor, it’s in a location out of the way, so I can start working immediately.

The other big feature in MC2019 is the Inspector.  Much like MediaInfo (a free utility that you can use outside of Media Composer for getting more information about your media), this dockable panel is used for just that.  Inspecting your media. You’ll get more information that you’ll need about your clips, and this tool is exceptionally helpful when working with Linked media, as I can’t count the amount of times I’ve been asked to take a snapshot of certain clip parameters to send to a client, and now all I have to do is take a snapshot of this window, and it has all the information I need.

With that being said, let’s talk about a few of the Bells and Whistles that I did cover in the above tutorial, in case you didn’t watch it yet..  MXFOP1a media has been the focus of Media Composer for the last few years, and this release has added a very smart feature that I can’t believe has taken this long to add, and that is the ability to capture as MXFOP1a media, as well as Transcode/Consolidate and even mixdown your timelines as it as well.  What does that mean for your Media Management? Data, Video and Audio are now all combined into one simple MXF file, much like it is when you’re exporting your final productions for delivery.

Speaking of Media Formats and Codecs, DNxUncompressed brings along with it the ability to have your media consolidated/transcoded into Float color space, and once you’ve C/T’d it, you can switch your Timeline’s Video Quailty over to Float as well.

Last but not least, Avid added a tool that I never knew I needed, but one that I’m using on a pretty regular basis now, and that is the ability to drag and drop effects to empty places on your timeline.  Before, if you wanted to add an effect, let’s use the Avid Titler+ effect, to your timeline on a track above everything else, you had to add edit points to that empty track before you could drag and drop the effect where you wanted it.  Well, not anymore! Now, simply mark in and out point on the track, and drag and drop any effect (Titler+ included) to the timeline, and that effect will be automatically added to the timeline with no additional work required.

With all this being said, I’ve seen the usual haters online already badmouthing MC2019 before they’ve even started using it.  I’ve seen some posts in the Avid Editors of Facebook page that “Nobody cares about Docked panels, they’re making a big deal about nothing”.  Remember, for Media Composer editors, many of them who have been editing on their Media Composer systems for over 20 years (yes, that’s me raising my hand), they don’t need change.  They don’t like change.  Everything has worked fine the way it is, but let’s look at cars as a good example. How much have they changed in the last 30 years. They haven’t really, at their most basic. You put the key in the ignition, turn it, the car (hopefully) starts, and you drive away.  That’s the way I look at Media Composer. Don’t get me wrong, features have been added, and companies like Boris FX have given us unbelievable tools to do things in our timelines that we have never been able to do before, but to be honest, if you look at Media Composer way back at version 5.5 when I started editing (that’s 20 years ago), and you look at it two months ago, features have been added, but not much has changed.  I would compare this update of Media Composer to going from a Chevy to a Tesla. They still do the same job, but things are just so much smoother in the Tesla than they are in the Chevy (Chevy lovers please don’t start e-mailing me.  LOL).

I’m writing this third last paragraph with a bit of a chuckle, as I’m going to talk about probably my most annoying new “feature” of Media Composer, and that is Audio Scrubbing.  Now, you’re probably thinking “Why would you be annoyed with Audio Scrubbing?”. Well, this comes from the book of “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”, someone at Avid decided that editors should have the ability to map Audio Scrubbing to any key on the keyboard.  Awesome. Sounds great. Except for one little problem. Audio Scrubbing has been mapped to Caps Lock since day one with, for me at least, absolutely no reason to change that. Well, in this version, you can now map Audio Scrubbing to whatever keyboard shortcut you want……except we can’t map to the Caps Lock key for some reason.  I can’t tell you how many times, today included, I’ve gone to turn on Audio Scrubbing by hitting the Caps Lock key, only to remember, for the millionth time, that I’ve had to map it somewhere else. Exceptionally annoying, no reason to do it, and you won’t get one customer switching to MC because you can map Audio Scrubbing to whatever keyboard shortcut you want to.

I want to give a final mention to a tool that was added a couple of releases ago, and to say it was underwhelming is an understatement, and that is Avid Titler+.  Fear not, Media Composer friends, as much as this tool was confusing definitely not what we expected when it was hyped for years (and years), the development team is still working to get this tool up to the level it needs to be at, and there are some updates to it that I will focus on in it’s own dedicated article/tutorial, as I feel this tool has the potential to be one to replace the Title Tool…just not yet, though.

In the end, the Audio Scrubbing gripe in minor, and I have to say that Avid has converted me.  When I first saw 2019.6, I thought that the coloring of the interface was cool, but I hated docked panels, I never used Workspaces, and I was just really annoyed in general.  After working with it for a couple of months I have to say that I’m totally converted. I’m a Docking Master, and a Workspace Overlord, and I have to say that I have found that these updates (except for Audio Scrubbing, of course) have helped speed up my workflow a great deal.  With that being said, if you’re looking to update to the newest version, which is available now, don’t do it in the middle of a project, as there is a learning curve you’ll need to be ready for as things are where you left them in previous version. I’ll say this…. Avid, you have taken a step in the right direction, and have helped me speed up my workflow more in the last two weeks, than I have in the last 10 years, so keep things going in this direction, and I think you might be onto something!   Keep in mind that I didn’t talk about all the new features of MC2019, so when you download the software, make sure to check out the “What’s New” document for all the new features, as well as the “Known Issues” PDF, as there are still some bugs being worked out, but overall my experience with MC2019 is that it’s one that Media Composer editors, as well as new editors, and recent converts will really like!

The post Media Composer 2019 – A step in the right direction? appeared first on ProVideo Coalition.

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[aion-rsa]

Wonder Woman and Giganta Team Up Coming

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It's the biggest team up you can imagine when Wonder Woman and Giganta get together.

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News Jim Dandy

DC Entertainment

Mar 11, 2019

Wonder Woman

For most comic books, the biggest draw for a comic book is the title character or team, with the writer and penciller being close behind in driving readers to a book - Batman is usually going to sell a bunch regardless of who's working on it, whereas Conan isn't going to move anyone's needle without someone of Jason Aaron's caliber working on it. So please understand that I recognize how out of the ordinary what I'm about to say is:

You should read Wonder Woman #66 for Mick Gray's inks and Romulo Fajardo's colors.

The two job titles are moving in different directions in today's comics industry. We've been known to get on one about colorists in the past, so it's probably no surprise that we're big fans of the work Romulo Fajardo is doing on Wonder Woman. The advent of digital coloring hit about 20 years ago, and once people figured out how to do it well, it enabled some incredibly talented people to add depth and sophistication to their color work in comics. There have always been talented colorists working in the industry, but in the last decade or so, you've seen more people get wildly creative with how they apply color theory in a storytelling medium that is incredibly dependent on it, and Fajardo is one of the underappreciated ones. He's had his hands in a ton of incredible books over the last several years, including The Omega Men and Midnighter, setting pallettes and helping amp up tones and action in books that were dependent on those things as much as they were on dialogue or fight choreography.

Inking, on the other hand, is a dying art in part because of the advent of digital production (and in part, I'm convinced, because of the rising cost of physical comics production encouraging cost cutting on the staff side, as well as stagnated page rates making pencillers want to keep more of the originals for convention sales man I could talk about this for hours). So finding any inker on a book is rare, and finding one as talented as Mick Gray is like...I don't know, something difficult but not impossible. Catching striped bass by hand? Overpowering a smart car? Help me out.

Anyway, Gray is incredible. And it's insane to say this about a guy who worked with JH Williams on Promethea, but I think his best work has been with Patrick Gleason, first on Batman and Robin and later Superman. Gleason's art, as we've seen since he joined Brian Michael Bendis on Young Justice and Action Comics, is terrific in its own right, but Gray's inks added a heft and weight to it that was essential to making those earlier stories work. It changed his style a lot. And it does the same thing for Cary Nord's pencils on Wonder Woman.

Nord and writer G. Willow Wilson are known quantities. Wilson is an exceptionally talented writer (even prose - go read Alif the Unseen) and her work on Wonder Woman is fresh and exciting and entertaining. Nord is incredible, like a looser, faster Phil Noto crossed with a Kubert, but it can tend towards the sketchier side from time to time. The shorthand rundown on issue #66, which DC sent a preview of, is Nord's art nails the motion (it's basically Wonder Woman and Giganta fighting giant rock monsters in a national park - so good); Gray's inks help ground his art a little bit (you really feel some of the punches), and Fajardo's colors sell the mood (the last page of the issue made me EXTREMELY ready for spring). Here's what DC has to say about the issue.

WONDER WOMAN #66 written by G. WILLOW WILSON art by CARY NORD and MICK GRAY cover by TERRY DODSON and RACHEL DODSON variant cover by VIKTOR KALVACHEV Wonder Woman’s mother is missing—and so is Aphrodite’s son! Together, they’ll turn the world upside down to find them...if the world doesn’t get turned upside down by a pack of wayward Titans first! By far the biggest survivors of the decimation of Olympus have taken up residence in Rocky Mountain National Park, and they’re not moving!

Check out the preview pages. They're legit great.

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